Arie Luyendyk Jr Холостяк #22

I have a shopping rule I swear by in my day-to-day life: Even if I love something and think I have to have it, if I’m feeling the slightest bit indecisive about it, I hold off. To me, that bit of hesitation is a sign I should listen to. (Nine times out of ten, when I ignore it, I end up with buyer’s remorse.) If I’m 100 percent confident in my pick, I won’t leave the store without it. Living another moment without this piece in my life is not even an option.

At one point in last night’s three-hour long Bachelor extravaganza (and we’re still only 60 percent of the way?!), Arie said, “I typically am a decisive person.” Despite many, many red flags, this innocuous little sentence stood out to me as arguably the biggest red flag of the entire pre-proposal process. If you are typically black and white in your decision-making processes, suddenly being otherwise is a sign that something is the matter. Perhaps it means he needed more time to do research and gather intel. Maybe the issue is the tyranny of choice, that if you had only one of your options to choose from, this conundrum wouldn’t exist (translation: you don’t love or need either option enough). Perhaps, despite your best, sincerest intentions, you just aren’t in the place in your life to make this sort of a choice. Regardless of what that niggle of doubt is signalling, all paths lead to the same conclusion. In terms of my shopping metaphor: Put the handbag down and slowly back away. For this Bachelor recap: Put the damn ring down and don’t propose.

This actually supports the fantasy Bachelor season I said I’d like to see while on Reality Steve’s podcast a few weeks ago. Steve asked me, 35 seasons in, where the show goes from here. I said that I for one would love to see a season I could relate to, one where there’s no acting, no going through the motions and only axing contestants periodically as per an 11-episode formula. Rather, a season where the lead openly knew his final six or so by episode 2 or 3 and sent home the rest, and where it was down to two for several episodes towards the end. It would be fascinating to watch the Bachelor spend something like a few days with each woman at a time. Would he miss the other woman? Would he run out of things to talk about with one and not the other? Would the chemistry and mystery of extravagant dates and limited time together fade from passionate love to companionate love, or would it just fade altogether? With so much time together, what extra tools would the lead have at his disposal to make a truly informed decision?

Having been #TeamArie for much of his season, instead of raking him over the coals as is popular (and tempting) in this moment, I will say this: I don’t believe Arie simply “doesn’t know” what he wants. I personally don’t think Arie could recognize and “know” his perfect woman if she stood right in front of him. This is because I strongly believe Arie struggles to differentiate chemistry from compatibility. I think Arie’s attraction to someone clouds his ability to see the conversation, and, yes, the “cerebral connection” for what they are. He is powerfully attracted to Lauren—I do buy and believe this—but seeing as how their connection has never been actually explained to us (in fact, it is repeatedly referred to as “unexplainable”), it’s hard to not chalk it up to chemistry. This is fine—he should have chemistry with his pick—but it alone can’t support a relationship. Again, I’m not saying he and Lauren don’t have anything to talk about—I’m merely basing this on evidence we’ve been shown. Neither of them ever seem capable of describing their connection, nor do they really attempt to. Arie even admitted to his family that he fears he’d spent too much time reassuring and validating her. His sister specifically asked if Arie was capable of having “real conversations” with Lauren, suggesting this has been something Arie has lacked with his past partners. Meanwhile, with Becca, the safe, solid relationship which he’s said fills him with “confidence,” and in which the conversation seems real and effortless—the very thing he lacked in the past—he has had a wandering eye (or in this case, a wandering mind), for Lauren—for that explosive chemistry. And by the same token, I believe that had he chosen Lauren, he would have still had lingering thoughts about Becca, for that solidity and effortless compatibility.

We knew Arie would be breaking someone’s heart last night. It’s par for the course in this franchise by now, and I actually think we as an audience are very forgiving about it—it’s understood as a “rite of passage” towards finding “love.” Jason Mesnick is a great example of that forgiveness of ours. Sure, he hurt Melissa at the time, but he’s still with Molly to this day and they’re a very happy family. A Bachelor can get confused but that, and the brutality of changing one’s mind and choice, can be worth it. I think that’s what the real issue is here, though: I sincerely question whether or not Arie would have that all powerful love with Lauren, if she takes him back. I don’t have confidence that they share what Jason and Molly share, or that his wandering eye (or mind) would come to rest. I could be (and truly hope) I’m wrong. At any rate, and maybe this is a very Canadian perspective, what I felt was lacking above all were profuse apologies in both of Arie’s breakups last night. If you are going to break things off in a relatively humiliating way, you’d sure as hell better sound AWFULLY sorry about it. Which he didn’t.

I cannot imagine having gone through what Becca was forced to endure, and be televised enduring. It was actually kind of sick, so much so that Andy and I started referring to her as a lab rat. After she first told Arie to leave and she went and quietly cried in a closet somewhere, it was as though she didn’t give them ENOUGH tears and heartbreak, so they sent Arie back in to lure her out of her hiding place. The whole thing felt like it should have been private, like it was not something we should be watching (that discomfort can sometimes be offset by entertainment value, but this didn’t even have that going for it). Becca herself handled everything like a CHAMP—she was strong yet not emotionless. So many people might default to becoming a self-sorry, self-doubting sad sack, while Becca showed she knew her own worth. On my blog a few weeks ago, I gave her mother props for seeming like a fantastic mother who raised a fantastic daughter, and as awful as last night was for Becca, I do think those both proved to be true.

While it’s certainly a part of their story that Arie and Lauren got engaged in this fashion, and it may well have ultimately strengthened their relationship (as Molly Mesnick said the experience had done for her and Jason), I personally don’t think it did them, as a televised couple with millions of eyeballs scrutinizing them, any favours. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, analyzing how Lauren had next-to-no early-season airtime (which by the way, is totally standard for runners-up on this show—remember my comparison to Becca Tilley on Chris’s season?). It’s clear the start of the season was funnelled into the editing sausage maker before Arie’s change of heart (or perhaps during), and thus we saw a season geared towards Arie and Becca’s happy ending, not Arie and Lauren’s.

This is detrimental to our potential to understand what Arie and Lauren share. Without seeing the crucial early (and lighthearted) moments between them, before Lauren became so invested and thus increasingly insecure and distraught, it’s easy (and natural) to assume there just wasn’t much there. For example, we hardly saw any of Lauren on Night One. How nice might it have been to have seen them meet, or as Lauren recounted, to have seen them realize that they’d met before, in Dallas, or seen her trip while walking into the mansion? (You guys know how much I hate it when happenings are referenced when we were never shown them!) Wouldn’t it have been nice to have seen at least a few sentences between them leading up to their first kiss in episode 3? (Instead, all we heard was Arie say, “I want to kiss you.” The whole thing was blended into the segment about Bibiana’s telescope set-up in front of the mansion, as one of the many moments an unwitting Arie spent with other women there instead of with Bibiana herself.) We didn’t know Lauren was even on Arie’s radar until episode 4, when Lauren referenced another earlier conversation between them that we never saw (urgh!!). We caught a glimpse of a lighthearted Lauren here when she said, “I want the kind of relationship where when we’re super old and gross-looking and we’re still spanking each other’s butts and telling dirty jokes,” but that was about it. Those first few words, the memory of having met, their laughs along the way… all of these little unremarkable occurrences could go a long way toward painting a bigger picture, a picture we might judge less and understand more.

I would be remiss to not be brutally honest and point out the many foibles on Arie’s part throughout this finale. I don’t feel too bad pointing them out, either, as I’ve been a major Arie supporter and still do think he’s one of my favourite Bachelors ever. (I know this is probably shocking, but it’s true! I ate up this season.) However, just as my honesty had me in his corner for so many weeks, it will now serve to critique. I’m not willing to brush off these details as unimportant because doing so doesn’t do our intelligence, as viewers, justice. Just as this show—and its stars—continue to evolve, they need to cover their bases better, because we too are evolving.

First, I am in the camp that believes while the breakup being televised was undeniably informative, it went way too far (having Arie return to lure Becca out of her private hiding place was just sick and mean). On the whole, this was better suited to being done in private. On last night’s second half of the finale, Chris Harrison asked a lot of the cast about this. He asked the women from Arie’s season, most of whom carefully said it didn’t go too far, and Becca herself even said she got closure from it and that she’d known what she signed up for, also careful answers. Meanwhile, when Jason Mesnick, speaker of truth, said that if Arie had asked his advice: “I would say, try to do it privately.” (I just LOVE how Jason Mesnick doesn’t give a crap about what the show—the very show he’s on—thinks!) Look, I get that the televised breakup was likely a predominant reason Becca was chosen as Bachelorette, which I’m thrilled about, but I don’t appreciate the dumb, insulting justifications as to why it was done. It was done most likely because producers saw it as a juicy, “Most Dramatic Finale Ever”-worthy ending to a poorly-rated season. Of course, Arie had to be in on it somewhat (Bekah M even went so far as to say “he had that choice”), but he is neither 100 percent to blame, nor remotely 100 percent faultless. Thus, I rolled my eyes when Arie said he chose to have that breakup televised so that everyone knew it was all on him. To me, that was a subtle way of suggesting well-meaning, as though the intent behind that whole scene really was something so innocent. It wasn’t. I see the show itself as 60 percent to blame for this, and Arie 40 percent for going along with it every step of the way.

Second, Bekah M made an interesting point when she said Arie “says whatever he needs to say to the person in front of him to get what he wants.” Now, I don’t think it’s quite as sinister as that, nor do I think he does it manipulatively or even intentionally. But she’s right in that I too get the sense that Arie says what he thinks he needs to say in the moment, and which, for a Bachelor hailed for his honesty (this was actually one of the things Lauren said she loved about Arie when Chris Harrison asked her on the live special), is a concern. Lauren said the first thing she asked Arie when they spoke was if Becca knew he was reaching out. Based on the way she spoke about this, it is safe to assume he told her Becca did know. But Becca had just told us she didn’t find out about this phone call until a week after the fact. She had encouraged him to speak with Lauren if it would alleviate his guilt, but the timing of his revealing this phone call to her was suspect. (Don’t even get me started on how, when he broke up with Becca, he made it sound as though he didn’t already have Lauren waiting in the wings.) Also, while he was having doubts with Becca (and was nurturing the possibility of a reconciliation with Lauren), he continued to make long-term plans with her, even looking at houses with her. This reminds me of his looseness with saying the L-word on his season (apparently there is such a thing as too many Words of Affirmation), in that those quiet reassurances only served to make the breakup itself more of a blindside. Obviously, these details aren’t a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but they do demonstrate that aforementioned tendency to say whatever sweet nothings he needs or wants to in the moment, even if and when those sweet nothings end up resembling white lies.

Finally, I have no issue with Arie and Lauren together and think they seem genuinely happy together, but I do think the proposal last night was in poor taste. Not only was it completely overshadowed by Becca’s announcement as Bachelorette, but Arie should’ve read the temperature of the room and known it would be seen as an odd choice more so than a romantic one. In my humble opinion, if I were Lauren, I’d want my proposal to be as far away from that mess as possible, and as with the breakup, I think it would have been better done in private. I know it’d been a few months for them together and they were evidently ready for this (plus I know there’s a massive ring at stake), but for us—the very players who made this gesture a grand and public one—it was very soon. Too soon. Far too soon for us to be expected to be super gung-ho about it. Remember, this was mere moments after Arie admitted he shouldn’t have proposed to Becca and that he’d felt rushed to propose in general because of the pressure of the finale. The way I see it, rushing to propose at After The Final Rose is not so different. Why could he not just propose to Lauren in, say, the kitchen? It felt too fast, too soon, and like it didn’t do either relationship, his past one with Becca or his future one with Lauren, justice.

As harsh as all this may come across, I swear it comes from a place of affection for both Arie and Lauren. On the whole, I have thoroughly enjoyed this season. It was kept me guessing and has kept things very interesting. Arie himself has been a human, if not perfect, lead. I’m sure many people can relate to him whether or not they’d like to admit it. And as I’ve mentioned numerous times over on the blog, I’ve enjoyed and applauded Lauren’s endearing discomfort on camera. I personally relate to her in that, and even though I know I’m not in the majority with this opinion, I’ve found her stoicism and carefulness very compelling. Above all, I am downright thrilled that Becca is next season’s lead, and without this happy couple, we wouldn’t have gotten such a triumphant and redemptive Bachelorette crowning. Congratulations to both Arie and Lauren, and to Becca, whom I for one cannot wait to watch finally “do the damn thing”!